SUSTAINABILITY REPORT RECEIVES INTERNATIONAL AWARD

The League of American Communications Professionals (LACP) has presented Evonik with the silver award in the “Chemistry” category for its 2017 Sustainability Award.

Founded in 2001, the renowned LACP provides a forum for experts from around the world to hold dialog on exemplary achievements in the industry. This year, financial and sustainability reports of almost 1,000 companies from more than 20 countries were submitted to the jury.

Evonik won the award in the category for companies with a turnover of more than US$ 10 billion. The members of the jury assessed all submitted publications against the criteria of cover design, foreword, text style and report narrative, creativity and clarity. Evonik’s report earned a total of 97 out of a possible 100 points. “We are delighted to receive this international award. It encourages us in our aspiration to make Evonik’s sustainability report better each year,” said Hannelore Gantzer, Head of Corporate Responsibility Relations.

In 2017, the focus was on processes and key figures with which the economic, ecological, and social impact of Evonik’s actions can be evaluated. Since 2017, Evonik also takes non-financial risks even more strongly into account in its traditional risk reporting. Opportunities and risks in sustainability are systematically recorded, monitored and reported via the risk management system.

In addition, the company succeeded in introducing a new reporting standard of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) one year earlier than necessary. The “GRI Standards” will be mandatory for reporting in line with GRI as of July 1, 2018. The GRI guidelines are regarded as the most commonly used framework for sustainability reporting by companies and organizations worldwide. Kathrin-Maria Beermann, Senior Expert at Corporate Responsibility Relations, said, “As a multi-stakeholder initiative, GRI maintains ongoing dialog with a wide variety of stakeholders. It responds to their expectations and uses these as a basis to continuously further develop the reporting guidelines.”